Unemployment Drops

Other Indicators Weak

August 02, 1986|The Morning Call

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton metropolitan area dived 1.5 percent to 7.8 percent in June compared to May, according to employment figures released yesterday.

The decrease put the Lehigh Valley above the state's seasonally adjusted rateof 6.5 percent and the nation's rate of 7.1 percent for June.

This news came on the same day that the Labor Department announced that the nation's civilian unemployment rate dropped 0.2 percent to 6.9 percent in July.

It was only the third time in Ronald Reagan's five-year presidency that the national rate has fallen below 7 percent.

Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Employment Security said there were 26,100 unemployed workers in the Lehigh Valley in June. The valley's workforce is listed as 321,900 in June.

Among the counties that make up the Lehigh Valley metropolitan statistical area, Carbon County continued to lead the region in unemployment with a rate of 9.4 percent. It is followed, in declining order, by Northampton County, 8.7 percent, Lehigh County, 8.5 percent and Warren County, N.J., with 4.2 percent.

Employment in all manufacturing industries decreased 0.4 percent overall, with transportation equipment and miscellaneous manufacturing having the largest decline. Textile mill industries had the largest increase.

Employment in nonmanufacturing increased 7.9 percent, with wholesale and retail trade increasing the most at 3.2 percent. Transportation and public utilities took the largest plunge in this category, falling 0.2 percent.

Average weekly earnings rose to $398.04 from $396.17 in May and hourly earnings were down to $10.18 from $10.29 in May. The average hours worked increased to 39.1 from 38.5 in May.

In national figures for July, civilian unemployment overall dropped by 253,000, from 8,443,000 to 8,190,000, last month.

Service employment continued to show the biggest gains of any sector, up 245,000 in July after an adjustment for the end of a telephone workers' strike against AT&T. Retail trade jobs rose by 70,000 and employment in the finance, insurance and realestate industries climbed 35,000.

The number of people working part-time because they could not find full- time work fell for the second straight month. Since May, such part-time employment has dropped by 580,000 to 5.4 million.

There was little evidence in other recent indicators, however, that a long-awaited upsurge in the economy is on the horizon.

The Commerce Department reported last week that the nation's Gross National Product grew at an annual rate of only 1.1 percent in the second quarter with a 2.8 percent drop in industrial production.

And yesterday, the Commerce Department said its Index of Leading Economic Indicators, its main economic forecasting gauge, climbed a slight 0.3 percent in June, suggesting that signs of the long-awaited rebound in economic activity are not yet on the horizon. The department said that the gain followed a 0.1 percent decline in May.

In addition, the Commerce Department reported yesterday that construction spending rose 0.1 percent in June. The department said the June increase, which left spending at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $375.1 billion, was the weakest showing since a 1.6 percent decline in March. Spending on new construction had risen 0.2 percent in May.